Cellphones change policing

Debate hints at rift between beat cops, top law officials

Associated Press

Published 11:11 pm, Thursday, October 29, 2015

Photo: Alex Sanz

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In this image taken from video, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott speaks during a press conference in Columbia, S.C., Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015. Lott suspended Ben Fields, a senior deputy with the Richland County Sheriffs Department, without pay after a video showed Fields forcibly removing a student who refused to leave her high school math class at Spring Valley High School. (AP Photo/Alex Sanz) ORG XMIT: RPAS201 less

In this image taken from video, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott speaks during a press conference in Columbia, S.C., Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015. Lott suspended Ben Fields, a senior deputy with the Richland County ... more

Photo: Alex Sanz

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In this Monday, Oct. 26, 2015 photo made from video taken by a Spring Valley High School student, Senior Deputy Ben Fields drags a student across the floor as he removes her from her chair after she refused to leave her high school math class, in Columbia S.C. The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation Tuesday after Fields flipped the student backward in her desk and tossed her across the floor. (AP Photo) ORG XMIT: AX603 less

In this Monday, Oct. 26, 2015 photo made from video taken by a Spring Valley High School student, Senior Deputy Ben Fields drags a student across the floor as he removes her from her chair after she refused to ... more

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Cellphones change policing

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Columbia, S.C.

When FBI Director James Comey told a national gathering of law enforcement leaders that cops might be easing up for fear of being caught on camera, the conference attendees included a South Carolina sheriff whose deputy was about to star in the nation's next viral police video.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott returned home to an uproar over images of a school resource officer flipping a 16-year-old girl out of her desk and dragging her across the floor of her math class Monday at a high school in Columbia. In announcing the deputy's firing two days later, Lott called on the public to shoot more video, not less.

"I would hope that every citizen that has a cellphone that has a camera on it, if they see something that's going on and they have questions about it, they need to film it," Lott said Wednesday. "Our citizens should police the police. That's their job, too."

Comey's and Lott's comments — one questioning whether video is causing a chilling effect, the other saying it can only help — are the latest contribution to an intensifying debate over the role of cellphones in policing. They come at a moment when departments are tasked with at once clamping down on violent crime and repairing fractured trust with the public. And they hint at a possible disconnect between beat cops and the brass on the impact of such footage.

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a civil rights investigation into the South Carolina school video, the most recent example of how citizen-shot footage of police encounters is inspiring not just outrage but criminal investigations.